Owners of Anoka RV with body inside 'not considered suspects'

Article by: Paul Walsh

Star Tribune

May 14, 2014 - 9:16 PM

The owners of a Louisville-bound RV that ended up in Winona with a Twin Cities bachelor party on board and a body tucked away below “are not considered suspects” in the young man’s death, authorities said Wednesday.

The body of Kevin Casserly, 22, of Anoka, was discovered on May 1 in Winona in the compartment of an RV that had been rented by a group of men headed to the Kentucky Derby. Casserly was reported missing by his family in November. A cause of death has yet to be released.

The RV’s owners were “immediately known to us, have cooperated with us fully and are not considered suspects in anything,” said Anoka County Sheriff’s Cmdr. Paul Sommer.

Sommer characterized the case as “an active investigation” and said his office will say more “when we have any additional [information] to release.”

The groom-to-be, Dan Trainor, of Rochester, and others in the party have so far not disclosed the RV’s owners.

Mystery surrounds not only how Casserly’s body got into the RV compartment, but how and why he disappeared.

The body was discovered when the bachelor party group stopped along Hwy. 61 in Winona and parked outside a closed-for-the-night Shopko store for a rendezvous with additional travelers. They noticed an odor coming from one of the vehicle’s exterior compartments, opened it and spotted the body.

One of the passengers said he and others were told that the RV’s owner had said that the two compartments near the front “do not work and should not be opened.”

The group never made it to the Derby, watching the famed horse race’s telecast at Canterbury Park in Shakopee.